Masking Tape
by AliceUnderSkies13
Summary: Guertena is an art major trying to find his way as an artist. His new roommate is strange, lonely, and lost just like him. What will this new living arrangement mean for them? And can Garry help Guertena make his fabricated dream a reality? College AU. SLASH.
1. Prologue

**A/N: So my poll has been open long enough. After asking which fandom I should write for next, the majority vote was for Ib! Yay! So here we go, my attempt at writing a unique Ib fic. It's a College AU with SLASH of the GarryxGuertena variety. Yeah, I know, this isn't done much, but I just really think they'd be cute together. And since this is an AU, I can throw the timeline to the wind! xD haha.**

**Anywho, enjoy this little prologue, tell me if I should continue, and please review.**

**-Alice :)**

* * *

Painting comes from the mind's…not the mind's eye, someplace else. Someplace so deep it sinks into the core and finds you there, rotten and whole. Apple cores litter the floor around the easel. Soft, white carpet that smells like dried paint and peonies. And the blinds smell like cherry cough drops. Guertena's throat is always sore. He sits on the wooden stool and paints with his tongue between his teeth. Curling his toes into the hem of his pajamas. Spinning the brush and muttering curses to himself. Because nothing is coming out right. There are dozens of screw-ups on the floor. A picture of a black cat, a coughing man, a sketch of a little blonde girl. But now is not the time for these things. His art teacher tells him to paint what's popular. Screw what's popular, that's what he says.

Screw all of those people that bind you with metal braces. That tear your feathers from your back and force you down to Earth. Guertena wants to fall into his creations. Pluck a fragment from his spirit and shove it in, full force. He believes that art is alive. Art is house. Art is home. It holds a part of your soul. Quick, get it in before it is ejected. Before your black cat paws it away. Before the coughing man spits it out like poison in his mouth. Before the little blonde girl brushes it aside…nothing. Guertena pushes his soul deep inside the canvas. Hopefully, it will stay.

But who knows?

He leans back and sighs. "Damn it all. Damn this hand, this mind, damn it all to hell." Shaking his head he gently places the brush on the easel. Deep breaths, deep breaths. "Never damn the brush, though. Or the canvas or the paint. It is not their fault…"

Fingers back away, shaking and holding back. He's pissed and boiling. "Never blame the brush, never blame—ahhhhh! I hate this!" He directs his anger at the drapes, the blinds. Tearing them apart with his teeth. Kick the apple cores. Throw the waste basket over your head. Gnaw at your nails and your knuckles but never hurt the canvas, never punish the art for what you lack.

He gathers up the failed attempts and flushes them down the toilet. Maybe he'll paint them again, maybe not. When he's older maybe he'll be better, wiser. Maybe. Maybe not. Right now, he has other things to worry about. Like the bitchy girl that comes to his dorm room every night, trying to force her way in.

She waits for him at the door. He comes back from a late night at the studio, paper and supplies gathered in his arms. There she is, snapping her gum and twirling her hair.

He groans. "Damnit." Clears his throat. "Uh, good evening. Need something?"

"Hi, Tena." She says it like "Tina". A shiver goes down his spine. Not of fear, more like disgust.

"I'm tired, can you please move so I get inside my dorm?"

"Only if you let me in, too." Tongue licking teeth, her oversized sweatshirt unzipped, revealing a red bra. Guertena thinks she would be a good model for a painting. He likes her look, he just doesn't like her.

"Listen, I know that you know that I have money. Let's just save us both some time and stop this game." He tries to unlock his door. Her hand blocks the key.

"You calling me a gold digger?"

"No, I'm calling you an ambitious young woman that seeks to court me only for my inheritance. So yes, I guess that could be shortened to 'gold digger'. Now please move. I am very tired."

Her eyes go wide, her mouth open. Guertena thinks she would look a lot better headless. And then he pushes through, into his room. Safe at last. This happens all the time. No matter how many times he refuses her, she returns. As if she's been reset. Forgetting his words and his disgusted face.

Now he is watching the crumpled pieces of paper spiral down the toilet. It makes him dizzy.

"I'm gonna lie down, hopefully have a dream or two." He talks to himself a lot. Tells himself what to do. Right now he wants to dream of his fabricated world and never wake up.

His roommate moved out a few months ago.

"You're just too weird, dude." That was his excuse for leaving.

Guertena smiled and nodded. "That's great, just fantastic. Have a wonderful life." And then he shut himself in the bathroom and painted angry eyes on the mirror. They're still there. A new roommate should be coming any day now. He got the letter last week.

What fresh hell is this? A new face, a new pair of hands and feet. Come to bother him and judge him. This new roommate isn't even an art major; he knows that for a fact. Bugging the housing office has its rewards. This new roommate is an elementary education major. Someone who loves children. Guertena doesn't know how to feel about that. He huddles on the couch, knees up to his chin. Apron ripped and paint splattered. Feet bare and stained blue. He'll have to pay for ruining the carpet at the end of the year. Oh well. He does have an inheritance after all.

An eye roll.

A hollow laugh.

Yeah, a lot good that does him.

Money won't help him deal with this…this…person. Grouped with this teaching fool, he'll experience a death of the individual. Consumed with worry, thinking fleeting thoughts on a moonlit night. And he'll fall into an abyss of the deep. Wishing, no, praying, to be saved. Saved from this person, this demon that has come to mar his perfect sanctuary.

This guy named…Garry.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys. I'm really glad some people like it ^^. Sorry for the short chapters and delayed update haha. I'm trying. Anywho, enjoy and please review if you can!**

**-Alice :)**

* * *

Garry is afraid of dolls. More specifically, he is afraid of the dolls that sit in the glass container outside the art complex. Right next to the double doors. A display case of some of the students' "best work". They stare at him with eyes that aren't really eyes. And smile at him with mouths that aren't really mouths. Just zippers and buttons all glued together. He hates them. He really does. But she loves them, so they go to the art complex every Tuesday.

Little Ib clutches his hand. Hair hanging like a curtain. Fingers drum his palm as she stares at her reflection.

"I like them. They're cute."

"I don't know about that…"

Prints on the glass. She looks a little distorted. Flip-flopped and turned around. Like a different version of herself. "They, uh, remind me of bunnies."

"Really?"

"Yes, Garry."

She looks up at him, blinking in the bright light. Sun rising behind his head.

"Looks like you have a crown."

He laughs, feeling the heat against his neck. "I guess I do. Now are you ready to go back to the classroom? It's almost lunchtime."

Her shrug makes him realize how small she is. Button-up crinkling and swallowing her shoulders whole. She could be a doll. Maybe.

Garry takes the shrug as a yes. "Ok, let's go back."

"Ok." Fingers linger on the glass as he pulls her away. Her love for art turns her into an old man. How she stares at words she can't read, yet she stares and sees them as something else. Not just words or lines pulled together with string. They're lines and colors pulled together by a brush. They are art. She examines the word "Hell" and says, "The lines are all curvy, I like that. Very pretty." And Garry will just smile, thinking about how she called Hell pretty. Brown turning red in the light, she'll stare at the goldframed portrait. Always the same portrait. The one called Hanged Man.

"An upside down man on a string."

Garry doesn't have the heart to tell her what it really is. All he says is, "Mhmm. It's painted by one of the art students. Some called Guer…Guertena? Odd name."

"Odder than yours?"

"Hey, my name isn't that weird. It's just spelled a little different, that's all."

Ib shrugs and stares like she always does. "Ok, I guess. But you're still a seaweed head."

"Am not."

"Well, I think you are, and so do all of the other kids."

He wants her to fall into the childish game of "am not", "are, too", but she won't. She never does. Just stands with both hands behind her back, rocking on her toes.

The other kids are the ones in her class. The education college at the university hosts a little "daycare" for children. Their parents are taking classes; they have nowhere else to go. So education majors volunteer. Garry loves kids. Their little hands pull at his raggedy coat. Smiles stuck on with Elmer's glue. If anything, it is their innocence. How they can look at Hell and call it pretty. Ib sees everything through rose-colored glasses. When she comes across a dead bird on the sidewalk, she says that it's sleeping.

Garry sleeps like he's dead. That's what his old roommate said. That is just one of the things his old roommate said. Other things, too. Like his annoying obsession with odd fashions. Long, ratty coat, violet hair. Apparently, he looks "gay" and acts like a "girly-man". And his old roommate hated his milk puzzle because it's "stupid and doesn't make sense". He hated the roses he kept in a crystal vase by his bed. He hated Garry's shyness and awkwardness and the way he flinched at the smallest of noises. All of Garry pissed him off. So he kicked Garry out. Just like that.

A room transfer should be nice. The papers came the other day. He's living with an art major now. But he can't remember his name for some reason. No matter. Garry likes art. Brushes resting in cups of water. Drips of yellow and red down the canvas. All white like snow.

Garry is snow.

Soft, falling quietly. Not trying to cause problems.

Kind of cold, kind of stinging. You either like it or you hate it.

When the clouds let go, it catches you without warning.

An art major should be able to handle that. With all of those swirling colors and nights full of darkened dreams. Shades falling quietly. Reds dripping like wet fruit, rotten in the middle of your brain. Masterpieces are twisted. Men are hanged, women are beheaded. Individuality dies. Garry has nightmares, too. Of dolls and eternal sleeps. What will it be like, to find another tortured soul?

That is, if the art major is tortured at all.

He could be happy. Floating in the middle of clear sunshine and light. Moonlight is pure. At night, it shatters into a million pieces. Drops of silver on your face. Your cheek.

Garry likes to look at the moon.

Ib likes to look at the sun.

She stares at it as they walk back to the classroom. Looking past his head with unblinking eyes.

"Be careful, you'll hurt your eyes that way."

"Doesn't hurt." She shakes her head. "I like it. Feels warm and pretty."

He smiles. "You call everything pretty."

"You're pretty."

"Oh, now you're just being silly." Blushing, he leads her into the room. Flattery makes him nervous. Even coming from a child.

He leaves Ib with another volunteer. Waving to her while checking his watch. Almost time to move-in. Night is the best time. When people are tired and dragging their feet in cotton pajamas. Emblazoned with the school mascot, covered in stains and full of holes. From stumbling in late at night, crashing into dressers and side tables. Drunk people, drowsy people full of notes and exam answers. All kinds of people.

It's ten and Garry finally goes up. Taking the stairs because he hates the claustrophobia of the elevator. He carries a small cardboard box. His possessions are few. The halls quiet as black pours out the windows. This campus becomes empty after nine. When the final classes end and everyone goes home. He fumbles with the keys for a few moments. One for his mailbox. One for the dorm.

Noises come from behind the door.

Muttering?

Moaning?

_Please, don't let him have a girl over. Please, don't let him have a girl over._

More muttering.

His eyes widen. _What if it's a guy?_

Not much to think about that. Not that Garry is very open about being gay. But people have guessed at it and whispered behind his back. Like he cares…

There is that slight wisp of hope. That maybe this art major is like him. Not that he wants to walk in on two people doing it on couch, no matter what the gender. But still, finding someone like him would be…amazing.

So amazing.

When he opens the door, he is ready to face whatever it is.

And there is only one man. Curled up on the couch all alone. Back to Garry, muttering to himself and running his hands through his hair.

"Uh, hello?"

"Hmm?"

Garry clears his throat. "Hi there. I-I'm Garry. Your new—"

"Garry?" The man turns violently around. Eyebrows drawn and angry. "Garry, the education major?"

"Yes, that would be me…"

He scoffs, turning back around. "Well, damn you, and damn it all."

"Oh…um, nice to meet you, too."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey guys! Here's another chapter, hope you all like it. And just so no one is confused the Lord of the Flies reference is because there's a character named "Piggy" that tells the MC Ralph that people call him "Piggy", and he kind of digs himself into a hole of humiliation lol.**

**Anywho, enjoy and please review!**

**-Alice :)**

* * *

There is a painting called Your Dark Figure. Guertena used a frayed brush and thick oil. In the middle of the night, he sat in the art complex. In the studio full of darkness and square ceiling tiles. He loves it there. Loves the silence that seeps into your bones. Because his bones are brittle, like his mind, like his mouth. He says things he really shouldn't.

Things like, "damn you and damn it all."

What a way to introduce yourself.

But back to the painting. Time moves faster in his head. Garry's fingers scrape the doorframe. Shoulders pop as he breathes. Everything slow and deliberate. Inside, Guertena sees the cat. Black and lithe against the frame. It's squeezed in tight. That's the way it's meant to look.

His professor said that the painting made him feel uncomfortable.

In the way he always does. Fingers tapping his chin. Eyebrows knitted as he examines every inch of canvas.

"It's, uh, how should I put it? Unnerving."

"That's the point."

"But what's the significance of the title? How is a black cat 'your dark figure'?"

Guertena rolls his eyes. Damn people, damn ignorance. He clears his throat. "It's not _my _dark figure. It's yours, and hers, and his. It's everyone's dark figure. It's the mysteries inside ourselves, the things that are threatening to just burst out."

The professor stares right through him. "I don't know…I think you're grasping at straws there. You're just a little too abstract for my taste, Guertena. That's all."

And then he wants to explode. Clenching and unclenching his fists. Classroom buzzing with students comparing artwork, critiquing and praising one another. Guertena never takes part in such tomfoolery. He has better things to do. Like silently cursing out his professor and banging his head against a wall. There must be a better way to release pent up anger.

Maybe he should join the video game club. Play indie horror games and scare himself shitless. Or join the baking club and shove his head into an oven.

Fun times.

But no. No. He'll just nod and shrink back into himself. Deep inside those mysteries. And he will always be that cat, trying to break out. Forever trapped in a brilliant Hell, so confused and lost. This light, this light sears his corneas and controls his thoughts. He is a bird trapped in a cage.

That painting is in his dreams. Never on the museum walls. Just lying under his bed and in his head. Forever irrelevant, forever non-existing.

This Garry person has eyes like that cat. Guertena only had to look once, then roll back over. He's got them memorized.

Another exhale. Time goes back to normal.

Garry is stuttering and twirling his keys. "S-Sorry if this isn't a good time…"

A scoff, an eye-roll. "Well you could say that again. It's almost midnight—"

"Actually, it's only ten fifteen."

"Whatever!" Guertena groans and rolls over again. "My point is, it's late and you come waltzing in with your luggage—"

"I only have one cardboard box."

He jumps to his feet, running his hands through his hair. "Good God, man, must you keep interrupting me?"

"No, I just…listen." Garry drops the box. It hits the ground with a dull thud. An orange, a pack of cards, a beaded necklace, and a roll of gauze come tumbling out.

Guertena raises his eyebrows. Not in the way his professor does. In that awe way, that curious way. He drops to his knees, feeling the skin of the orange. Perforated and porous. He thinks of human skin. And the cards are bent and bitten. Gauze is a strange thing. It's so soft, but it's used for the hardest of things.

"Wow, such odd possessions."

"No, stop trying to change the subject." Now Garry is angry. He rolls up his coat sleeves.

But why?

What the hell is he going to do?

Hit the guy?

No.

He clears his throat, trying to raise his voice. It's hard to do. "Just listen to me. I'm…I'm your new roommate, ok? And that's that. I apologize for coming in so late, but I don't like drawing attention to myself. So I'm sorry and I'm Garry, in case you didn't hear me earlier."

Guertena crosses his legs. Tapping his toes to some invisible beat. "So is your name Sorry or Garry?"

_Ok, I'm done. Just done. _"Seriously?"

The art major's laugh is scattered, like his brain. "I jest. Now come in, sit down or something. I don't know."

Garry gives an uncertain laugh. "Uh, I'm not sure about that. A few minutes ago you were damning me and everything else to Hell."

"Oh ignore all that." He waves it all off. Hands ushering it to the door. "Just the rantings of an underappreciated artist."

"I read that you were an art major." Garry smiles and slowly closes the door behind him. "Do you, uh, have anything hanging in the campus museum?"

"Well actually—"

"Because I go there a lot. You know, to look at all the paintings." He has a habit of rambling. Talk and talk and talk until everybody leaves. "And there's this one painting I really love, it's called Hanged Man. It's by someone named Guertena."

"I know. That's me."

Garry opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. "I, uh, really?"

"Yes, it is. I would think that you'd know my name, seeing as you're going to be living with me and all." He licks his lips, teeth lingering on the bottom. Try not to be annoyed, Guertena. Don't let this be yet another reason validating your non-existence. He forces a grin.

Garry takes a step back. "Sorry…"

Kinda scary, that is. This man named Guertena. Hair shaggy and hanging in his eyes. Those eyes so tired and red. In the darkness of the dorm, he is a ghost. Some long dead artist in a stained smock. Notice the way everything sways. When he moves, it all seems to go to the right. The bangs, the smock, the eyes. Like he's on strings. Garry feels many things flowing from him. Carelessness, paranoia, worry, fear. And many other things that have no name. Pictures of lips and ears and eyes. A kind of clockwork sense, like Guertena is the type to keep time. Shifting his eyes, Garry sees five frames propped against the wall. Like the structure of book, they read: prologue, chapter 1, chapter 2, last chapter, and epilogue. Possible titles for new paintings? Garry can only guess. And when he looks at the floor, really looks at it, he notices the crumpled pieces of paper. There's a name scrawled there, a noun, a verb.

Phrases:

Geometric Fish.

Horizon View.

Abyss.

Ideas, words, feelings. Garry doesn't know what to call them. All he can do is smile and think of Ib and how much she would like this man. With all his oddities and quirkiness. But Garry is odd, too. Just like his name. He can be strange, even bizarre. And for a fraction of a second, he wants to prove this to Guertena. For some unknown reason.

He opens his mouth again. A pause. Then, "Some people call me seaweed head."

Immediately, he wants to smash his fingers in the doorframe. Damnit.

Guertena is looking at the necklace. Rolling the beads between his fingers. "Now why on Earth would you tell me that?"

"I…I don't know." Garry groans and leans against the wall. It's covered in scratches and splatters of paint.

"Such a strange nickname."

Garry's ears perk up at the word strange.

"I mean, looking at your hair, I can see why they call you that. But the fact that you told me is strangest of all. You're like Piggy from Lord of the Flies."

"I guess that makes you Ralph, then."

His grin becomes real. "I guess it does."

Garry can see the pride flowing through his body. Starting in those curled toes and ending at the tips of silvered hair. They wait in silence for a moment. Waiting for what, neither knows. Garry starts roaming the dorm. Not that there's much to see. A bunk bed is jammed into one corner. Looks like Guertena made plenty of room for his art supplies. Easel in the middle of it all, a wooden stool and a small, dingy couch that he stuffed in here. There are drapes that clearly did not come with the room. Overall, an aura of crazy sophistication. This is the dorm of a mad person. A beautiful mad person with paint-stained fingers. Garry finds himself blushing.

Thankfully, they have their own bathroom. That is one of the perks of this dorm. You share a room, sure, but the bathroom is just the two of you.

"I'm gonna freshen up a bit." Damnit, that sounded particularly girly. "I mean, I'm going to take a shower, not that you need to know."

"Just go."

"Uh yeah." Still blushing, he slips inside.

Guertena closes his eyes. Wait for it, wait for it…

There it is. Garry's scream echoes across the dorm. He saw the scary eyes painted on the mirror. Guertena keeps his smile. Might as well make it permanent.

He shakes his head, peeling the orange. Slowly. "This should be a lot of fun, oh yes, a lot of fun."

A cloud of juice explodes from the orange. Almost invisible. He tastes it on his tongue. Sweet and sticky. And then a memory goes floating by. Something he buried deep inside, a long, long time ago. A single question: What happened to the girl in the green dress?

When Guertena was young, he saw a blonde girl in a green dress. He racks his brain, trying to remember his walk home that day. Flat buildings that were nothing but paper, dolls moving in and out of them all day long. Guertena walked home with his shiny backpack bouncing on his back pockets. Aviator's full of umbrellas and girls in high heels. He didn't like them, he still doesn't. They were prissy and acted like cats. Blonde curls were fake, they weren't fooling anyone. Scarf draped over his button-up, green jacket zipped halfway, he walked and rolled his eyes at all the girls.

His childhood was full of fancy houses and money. Fake people. But then he saw the little blonde girl and he had a thought. He wanted to hold her hand. Not because he liked her, but because she was…strange. And odd. And wonderful. That feeling you get when you meet a living, breathing work of art. Because that is what she looked like. A painting come to life.

Guertena is getting that feeling now. He thinks of Garry's eyes and Your Dark Figure. He thinks of the gauze and pack of playing cards. Such an odd person…such an interesting person. Full of bits and pieces of a million different souls. A work of art.


End file.
